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Trump might say it's a starting point, being a so-called skilled negotiator. Or he is trying to disrupt and/or split the GOP. To me his budget looks like a blueprint for a severe recession and maybe depression. If he disrupts the GOP enough he never has to sign anything so nothing's on him - he can blame Congress.

I guess he does have to sign off on a budget eventually. Or keep vetoing it, forcing bipartisan cooperation. "I wanted to cut spending, but Congress wouldn't let me do it." Also it keeps career government employees from getting too uppity.

I was convinced by Trump's budget directors explanation for cutting school lunch funding. No evidence whatsoever that feeding kids alleviates their hunger. Why, they just get hungry again in a few hours!

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then feeding hungry kids is literally insane!

I was convinced by Trump's budget directors explanation for cutting school lunch funding. No evidence whatsoever that feeding kids alleviates their hunger. Why, they just get hungry again in a few hours!

No more egg rolls for you!

- Chinese buffet guy to me and my high school friends, who knew he was so prescient.

Let's start with Arts . . . regardless of the size of the budget, why should any money be spend on stuff like the National Endowment of the Arts/Humanities?

Especially since that cut will almost pay for his golf trips--so far. School lunch cuts will get us through December.

__________________"Political correctness is a doctrine,...,which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
"I pointed out that his argument was wrong in every particular, but he rightfully took me to task for attacking only the weak points." Myriadhttp://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=6853275#post6853275

On Friday, the White House blasted out an email that included headlines from and links to favorable news articles—it’s just that one of those links was to a satirical comedy piece written by Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri that mocks President Donald Trump’s new budget blueprint.

Petri’s “analysis,” titled, “Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why,” includes such lines as “AMERICA WILL BE STRONGER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN! Anyone who survives will be a gun covered in the fur of a rare mammal, capable of fighting disease with a single muscular flex. RAW POWER! HARD RAW POWER GRRRRRR HISSS POW!”

It’s a small act of the Trump administration owning itself online that Petri finds wonderful.

__________________"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States...nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" - Isaac Asimov

If we're cutting funding to arts, science, diplomacy, the environment, education, etc., What are we preparing to fight other countries to protect?

We fight other countries to protect federal funding for arts? Because our enemies want us to stop spending federal money on arts?

What in the Sam Hill are you talking about?

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Public libraries and museums bring art, history, and literature to the public for free. That's why.

Abolishing the NEA won't get rid of museums and libraries. Libraries and museums are funded locally; I'm a patron of several museums in my community and even in NYC and other areas. My city just repurposed an old Wal-Mart as a pretty impressive library. We don't need a federal agency to do what local communities should be doing.

One of the museums in my area has received several grants from NEA for exhibitions they wanted to bring down. If there was no NEA, there would still be the community of patrons and I'm sure we would support whatever the museum wanted to bring down.

One of the museums in my area has received several grants from NEA for exhibitions they wanted to bring down. If there was no NEA, there would still be the community of patrons and I'm sure we would support whatever the museum wanted to bring down.

So, then, the libraries and museums would be more limited in how they could serve their public. Wouldn't you agree?

__________________"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes.
"You are the herp to my derp" -- bit_pattern

So, then, the libraries and museums would be more limited in how they could serve their public. Wouldn't you agree?

No. Eliminating the NEA would not limit what libraries could offer at all being that the NEA doesn't fund libraries.

It wouldn't limit museums either. They would still be able to offer the same things they always have, just as they did before the creation of the NEA in 1965.

You might have an argument that certain artists have benefited from NEA grants and maybe their particular art wouldn't get made but I don't think it's a very strong argument for the NEA. If they can't sell their art, I don't see why the taxpayers need to fund it.

For example, in my community, the NEA awarded a $25,000 grant to a Laura E. Perez for literature/creative writing. Yet I can't find any Google mention of a Laura E. Perez from McAllen having published anything. The closest I get is a Laura E. Perez who is a professor at Berkeley in California. If that's the same person, I think she could have gotten by without the $25,000 from the taxpayers. If it's not, then what the hell did our money go towards?

I'm of half a mind to submit a grant to NEA so I can pursue my unrequited dream of being a painter . . .

it's not the fact the government doesn't want to pay for those things, I suppose, even though one would think that a wealthy nation could at least contribute to the arts in some way, but it's the fact that the money is being redirected to the Military Industrial Complex and tax cuts for the rich that I have a problem with.

__________________You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your INFORMED opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant. -- Harlan Ellison

it's not the fact the government doesn't want to pay for those things, I suppose, even though one would think that a wealthy nation could at least contribute to the arts in some way, but it's the fact that the money is being redirected to the Military Industrial Complex and tax cuts for the rich that I have a problem with.

Maybe, but why?

eta: to be more specific: Why is more money being redirected to the Military Industrial Complex? For what purpose?

__________________"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes.
"You are the herp to my derp" -- bit_pattern

. . . I think she could have gotten by without the $25,000 from the taxpayers. If it's not, then what the hell did our money go towards?

I'm of half a mind . . .

Without more specifics on what that grant was for - or if it was even a grant as opposed to an honorary award - it's not possible to determine where the money went. It might have supported a graduate student, provide travel money for a series of lectures or research trips of her own, provided the means for Dr. Perez to cover some publications costs for her latest book, etc.

Tenured faculty typically collect their salary from their university. External grants provide the support they need to actually do things like conduct research and provide salary for their graduate students.

I've raised about $2 million in grants in my career, none of which has contributed to my salary, mortgage, etc. What it's done is allow me to create positions for the many people I've hired to work in my lab down through the years. Productive faculty are job creators. We are legally obligated to turn the cash we raise into new positions.

If it doesn't cost very much, then it should be easy to make up the funding from other sources.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Your reading comprehension is as solid as ever. Look again. It was not a claim, it was a question. You can tell because of the question mark.

The claim I'm referring to was from your earlier post. I asked you to support your claim. Instead of supporting your claim, you want me to, with your question being the first step of what I'm sure you hoped would be a series.

When you want to insult someone's reading comprehension, it helps to not fail in that regard yourself.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law